


an unspoken heartbreak, a heartbroken handshake

by boxerzayn



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, F/M, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Unrequited Love, and when london was small and sooty, i really dont know what to tag this as, louis and zayn are best friends and zayn likes louis wowowow, louis is with eleanor but just like for one second, theyre refered to as king and prince of london, this is set some time after cars and telephones were invented
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-31
Updated: 2013-08-31
Packaged: 2017-12-25 04:56:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/948873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boxerzayn/pseuds/boxerzayn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>nine things that zayn wishes he could hate about louis</p>
            </blockquote>





	an unspoken heartbreak, a heartbroken handshake

**Author's Note:**

> title (and inspiration) from passenger and the song "patient love". sorry that it's short and has no timeline or anyhting, really.

> "with you, intimacy colours my voice. even ‘hello’ sounds like ‘come here’."
> 
> — warsan shire 
> 
>  
> 
>  

 

1\. louis is hard to be affectionate back to. he is hard to cup between your fingers. it’s so hard, the fact that zayn can’t say it back, when louis throws ‘i love you’s’ out like old garbage. he can’t whisper it into louis’ skin fast asleep, can’t just say it, like it’s a topic as any else. if he’s gonna tell louis the way he loves him, it’s not going to be enough to mumble it, it will have to be screamed out from on top of a hill, loud so the three words echo against the cliffs, and over the sea underneeth, ratteling through every fish.   
if zayn is ever going to tell him how his bones ache to be scrambled together with louis’, he has to fire it like a perfectly aimed arrow shooting off into the sky.   
sometimes, when they’e lying on the beach in the sun that zayn’s skin doesn’t sing in quite the same way that louis’ does, toes or fingertips or thighs maybe touching, zayn wants to tell louis, about the way he has studied their angles.  
about the way they might fit quite perfectly together as lovers, because they already have parts of eachother tucked in between organs and ribs. all the angles would be right, zayn’s sharp cheekbone against louis’ rasp laugh, his slender fingers walking across louis’ soft tummy. it would be so tooth rotteningly great, and zayn closes his mouth and stays quiet.

 

 

2\. louis is loud. he’ll shout words out through the window when they’re driving in his old car down the sandy road and it’s like he owns every thought he has. (wan't everybody supposed to do that, really?) it’s like everything inside of louis is golden, and he’ll just purr it out if he wants to, not the way zayn’s thoughts claw at him like knives inside his throat.  
“you’re quiet today,” louis will say, all sharp and crisp and air-stilling.  
 _it’s because i worry i might say to much,_ zayn thinks, wonders if louis can see it in his eyes, the desperation.  
louis just smiles though, smiles towards the warm road they’re flying across, and when zayn mumbles “i dunno,” he’s sure louis did notice the few beats too late it was.

 

 

3\. louis is sweet like candy. he makes zayn so happy, is the thing. when they’ve been out at night, rumbling through the city just the two of them - when the stars have shone on louis’ skin and made it look silver, when they have laughed so hard zayns ears will be ringing, and that soft warm content feeling has settled in his chest, he’ll try to go to sleep but he can’t; not with louis’ sharp teeth digging in to his mind, not with the sensation in his bones of owning a whole dark blue, star-cled town with louis.

 

 

4\. louis is poison. he is poison, the way he has seeped into zayn’s skin and sort of drains every thought, making everything zayn thinks a shade of gold and making his mouth taste metallic.  
he can barely rememer the time before he knew louis, before he became the prince of the city, before he even knew that louis was the king. it was almost mean, the way louis threw himself onto zayn —with sloppy kisses on his neck and an intoxiating skin himself, tasting like salt and wine— and then in the morning, sobered up and soft, saying “you and i should be best mates, zayn.”  
he poisons the laughs he pushes out of zayn before he’s even made the joke, because the air louis breathes reeks of poison zayn is so willing to swallow down, just to taste the hazy, drunken purple happiness.

 

 

5\. louis loves children. it mesmorizes zayn, the laugh louis gets around small children, and he thinks it was born somewhere in yorkshire when louis’ father left and the bread was too dry and he had to make his family survive.   
and zayn gets it, because he has younger sisters too, and even when the bags under his eyes are soot and ashes, they still crinkle when he gets to speak with them. it’s mostly on the phone, with louis leaning against the wall in front of him, smearing his soft skin against the cold white wall.

"let’s adopt a kid, one day." louis whispered into zayns shoulder one day, when the sun was bright and the topics between them floating around like the thick air.  
“what?” zayn had laughed.  
“yeah. if i ever see a child crying because he lost his parents outside the coal mine, i’ll pick him up and take him with me. we’ll have’im in the back seat of the car and we’ll drive until he’s laughing and singing and we’ll buy chocolate, real chocolate, mate.”  
zayn had been smiling widely at this part.  
“and you’ll teach him proper english, yeah, and i’ll teach him how to get women and make good tea, right.”  
they had laughed, and zayn had sighed into louis’ stray hair and felt content.

 

 

6\. louis demands full attention. it’s not even his own fault, the way people turn around when he walks into his favourite café, because the golden of his presence sips into the leather of the booth he always picks like water, like wine.  
he always orders the juice, cheapest thing on the menue exept milk, yet it looks like a glass of powerful magma in his hands.  
the world fits itself around louis, and zayn is sure it can’t just be him, that slots against louis as if gravity worked sideways just here. in the forest it’s like the trees bend around him so it’s easier to walk across the autumn leave path, while the sticks poke through zayns leather shoes and the wet leaves stick to his ankles.  
in the sea the water seem warmer around louis, the waves seem to embrace him, they don’t drown him like they drown zayn. zayn does like the sea though, even though it scares him. (if he didn’t enjoy scary things at least a bit he wouldn’t be this close to louis) it still feels sort of soft against his skin from the summer all those years ago when louis taught him to swim.   
louis also demands full attention from every _body_ , every person at the cheap party; demands smiles back from every girl, even though it means he has to give them his very best one.

zayn wonders if louis likes making people jealous.  
“mostly," louis tells him, "i like you." and it's loud enough to echo through zayns head and clog together his teeth, but quiet enough for it to be their secret.

 

 

7\. louis is soft. and it’s bad, bad, bad, because zayn is entirely sure it would be much easier to hate him. to think of louis as some obnoxious boy who thinks he rules all sooty alleys of london.  
it’s hard when louis whispers things in his ear, when he looks at zayn so fond from the steering wheel, and when he says ‘i love you’ — laughs it out or says it quiet and kind in between cold dirty bedsheet, zayn melts and softens and soaks himself in louis’ glory and it’s bad; he’s digging himself a grave.  
there’s that cherry tone to louis’ voice, when he’s talking hushed and slow and not like him at all, when he’s drunk enough to be affectionate but not drunk enough to be impossibly loud.   
it’s like that time zayn tasted chocolate on his tongue, every time, and how can he spit it out when it’s the best he’s ever tasted?

 

 

8\. louis lives in his own world. it’s delightful for him but zayn can feel himself loath it, feel himself rottening when louis drifts away like that, seeing colours zayn can’t see and hearing songs zayn can’t hear.  
that’s when zayn feels so miserable because nomatter how close he ever feels to the boy with sunkissed skin and dirty feet and sharp eyes he won’t, won’t ever be under louis’ skin the way louis is under zayn’s.

 

 

9\. louis is in love. this is what zayn wishes he hated the most because it is terrible, the taste of eleanor in the breath louis puffs out. zayn will come home to their flat, all cold tired feet and hanging underneeth his shoulders and he’ll need a cuddle under their sheets, need and hand on his thigh to keep is knees from shaking and a cigarette lit from louis’ matches out on the balcony — viewing the stinking grey soot town together but bashing in their own glow — to make his hands stop trembeling, but. it’s one of those days, one of those when louis hand slips out of elle’s nickers _fumbling_ , nervous. when zayns eyes feel cold when they land on louis’ flushed sheeks, at the exact same time as he feels this strange turn on, this weird liking, of louis being all over elle and seeing gold in her skin.   
it makes him feel somehow powerful, seeing louis crumble between someone else, even if its not in his own hand.   
it hurts, sometimes; sometimes tastes like sad coins on his tongue when louis talks about her and her long legs and the way she makes him feel.  
zayn has to keep his mouth shut those days, to not scream unhelping words that could ruin it all. to not rush it all out, because it’s a thunderstorm inside of him, this infaution, and if he opens his mouth it will roar through the whole room and take everyone down and it won’t be pretty.

(maybe, though, while getting slaughtered by a mighty storm, louis might crawl to zayn in a last attempt at being saved by eachother, and they will mold together, slot together, scramble together their bones the way zayn would die in a thunderstorm to be able to.)


End file.
